Macabre…ish Horror Review: Love and Monsters

 

 

Love and Monsters, 2020/ 1 hr 48 min

 

An asteroid heads to Earth and we sent rockets, the result was a chemical fallout and many of Earth’s cold blooded animals mutated, leading to humanity’s near extinction.

 

Seven years later, in one of the underground colonies, among the dwindling population of humans, lives Joel (Dylan O’Brien). He sets off alone in search of his girlfriend, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), after the colony is breached by a giant ant. He and Aimee were separated during evacuation, after his parents were killed, and he vowed to find her. He’s located her colony and the radio channel to contact her.

 

But one thing about Joel is, he freezes in the face of danger. Which makes him useless in a combat situation or self defense in general. But finds out she’s just 85 miles away, 7 days on foot with all manner of monstrous bugs between them. But he’s going anyway. His colony mates reluctantly see him off.

 

The world has been reclaimed by nature. Joel happens upon a house with a monster in the fridge and one in the pool, a giant frog, he’s saved by a dog named Boy. After discovering the dog is alone and waiting for his human who never returned, so with his security dress in tow, Joel gains a companion.

 

Everything is starts off well, then he falls into a hole that turns out to be a nest and he’s rescued by other people, a man, Clyde (Michael Rooker), and his daughter, Minnow (Ariana Greenblatt), who happened to near by. They teach Joel basic survival skills and that not all monsters are dangerous and after an enormous snail, known as a boulder snail, passes by.

 

Joel declines their offer to be a trio in favor of Aimee and part ways, accepting Clyde’s gift of a grenade. It’s not long until He and Boy are facing off with a massive centipede. Joel returns the favor and saves Boy’s life.

 

With only 7 miles left to Aimee’s colony, they then discover a robot in a motel named Mav1s on it’s last hour of power and it’s ‘eager’ to talk and be of use on Joel’s quest. Offering to donate what little power it has left. It’s last act is showing Joel a collage of his parents and playing music.

 

Soon they are running from a terrifying earthworm and almost don’t survive it because Boy had to rescue his security dress. But no problem there because the lake Joel jumps into is infested with horrific leeches that cause hallucinations.

 

Then Aimee finds him.

 

This reunion is not what he dreamed of and too much time has passed.

 

 

This is a great adventure comedy! Good narration and flashbacks to fill in the gaps. Great monster bugs and animals. It is fast paced and action packed. Many exciting kills but no blood and guts, plenty of monster splatter though. What fight scenes there are, are really. Good movie! It turned out to be a feel good apocalypse flick.

 

Dog lover’s, Boy is so good in this movie.